Review - The Bloody Benders by Rick Geary
April 6th, 2008 John Posted in Comic Books, Reviews |
It’s not hard to be convinced that Americans have devolved into some alarming form of gruesomeness when you pay attention to the news. Tales of murder abound and they’re often punctuated by the attitude that the country has gone to hell in a hand basket and our penchant for disturbing and psychotic pursuits is somehow new.
Rick Geary’s extremely calm non-fiction graphic novel “The Bloody Benders” relates one more bit of evidence that this sort of horrible behavior has always existed — and only time offers any ability to look at it calmly. Centering around the mysterious Bender Family in Kansas, Geary walks the reader through a tale of murder that somehow manages to be macabre, even disturbing, without actually being gross.
The Benders were four people — purportedly an older father and mother, a simple son and spiritualist daughter — who lived in parcels of land off the Ossage Trail in 1870. This was a busy road and their provisions store attracted many visitors — they also provided meals and, sometimes, a place to sleep. But a disturbing stench crept from the Benders’ manner and following the events of the book, there came tales of unhinged madness that showed its face to several visitors who were disturbed enough by it to keep quiet.
Following the Benders’ arrival, travelers began to go missing — though the family was considered odd, they seem to have escaped any real investigation. It was only after they were safe from prosecution that any success was gotten in the case — and only after the bodies had piled up.
At the center of the clan was the daughter, Kate, who enticed men with her beauty and women with her supposed mystical prowess — Kate claimed to be a healer who claimed to cure all sorts of diseases, including deafness, and despite being such an obvious charlatan, many think that she was the ringleader of the murderous clan.
While Geary is sober with his facts, it’s the recent history of Kansas and the legends that swirl around the Benders’ fate that bookmark the book with a chilling ambience. The state is born through blood baths revolving around the Civil War, followed by the treatment of American Indians as cattle to be moved from one parcel of land to the next. It was a land of bleak possibilities, where horrible winters were followed by summers which pounded into a person’s strength. Cyclones, floods, infestations and disease were constant. Through Geary’s pen, the entire state comes off as just the sort of place the Benders would call home.
Never captured, there are many tales surrounding the family’s fate — some in the realm of possibility, some far too fantastic to ever be likely. They do show, however, America’s enduring relationship with horrible murderers. They capture our imagination, perhaps because we cannot understand how someone, with precision and surety, can take multiple lives in order to achieve whatever goal might be in their heads — in the Benders’ case, that would be money. One thing is for certain — when the Benders took off into the distance, their spirits roamed the country and continue to do so. Their names may have been forgotten by many, but their work continues.
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